Two private companies have announced that they will begin to offer "lie detection" services using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), as early as this summer. fMRI can produce live, real-time images of people's brains as they answer questions, view images, listen to sounds, and respond to other stimuli.

These companies are marketing their services to federal government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and the CIA, and to state and local police departments.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

from jones report: A noted terror expert has told the BBC that Mohammed Siddique Khan, the alleged ringleader of the 7/7 London bombings, was working for British intelligence agency MI5 as an informant at the time...

Charles Shoebridge is a 12-year veteran detective of the London Metropolitan Police, a former graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and now a broadcaster and writer on terrorism in the UK.

Shoebridge told the BBC Newshour program that from the evidence little else can be assumed other than that Khan was working for British intelligence.

from raw story: In a BBC news broadcast today, Miami Herald reporter Mani Garcia remarks that the government's arrest of seven men in connection with a 'plot' to blow up the Sears Tower is probably overblown.

"They've been described to us by sources as 'wannabes' -- still to be determined if making a connection about talking about doing an attack and and being able to finance an attack," Garcia said. "We've seen previous cases (such as Canada & Toledo) where the Federal government has announced with great hoopla breaking terrorist cells. And when you start deconstructing a case, you see that there's a lot of talk."

"I don't know if anyone in the 1950s thought the Cold War would last close to half a century, but it did," Ridge said. "The challenge is global and it may take a generation or two or more to reduce."

Federal, state and local authorities now share more intelligence that they did before the attacks, but they will have to continue to improve to if they are to prevent future terrorism, Ridge said.

RAND Corp., a research and analysis institution focused on policy and problem solving, emerged during the Cold War with a defense-related agenda and remains involved in a range of national security issues.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

from reuters: The southern end of the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles, which has been still for more than two centuries, is under immense stress and could produce a massive earthquake at any moment...

Yuri Fialko, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla, California, said that given average annual movement rates in other areas of the fault, there could be enough pent-up energy in the southern end to trigger a cataclysmic jolt of up to 32 ft.

from gothamist: The summer solstice occurred at 8:26 EDT this morning. Somewhere over the eastern Atlantic the sun reached it's northernmost point in the sky –being directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer at local noon. The solstice marks a point in time when druids appeared in droves at Stonehenge, newspaper columnists around the country make astronomically ignorant statements, and the 50 million dollar ad campaign for Stride chewing gum begins.

from krqe: The annual celebration of the summer solstice at Britain's Stonehenge monument passed peacefully after a wet night.Police estimate about 19,000 people -- the usual mix of hippies, pagans and druids -- greeted the sun as it rose just before 4 a.m. local time on the longest day of the year...

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

from world net daily: Author Jerome Corsi filed a Freedom of Information Act request yesterday asking for full disclosure of the activities of an office implementing a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada that apparently could lead to a North American Union, despite having no authorization from Congress.

As WorldNetDaily reported, the White House has established working groups, under the North American Free Trade Agreement office in the Department of Commerce, to implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, signed by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005.

Friday, June 16, 2006

President Bush signed an agreement last year with President Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Martin of Canada to merge into a North American Union. Like the European Union, we will be under an 'umbrella government' that will run the show and destroy what's left of our sovereignty.

Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.

President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.

"At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint action. We welcome this important development and offer this report to add urgency and specific recommendations to strengthen their efforts."

Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway: Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

The Plan to Replace the Dollar With the 'Amero': The idea to form the North American Union as a super-NAFTA knitting together Canada, the United States and Mexico into a super-regional political and economic entity was a key agreement resulting from the March 2005 meeting held at Baylor University in Waco, Tex., between President Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin.

A joint statement published by the three presidents following their Baylor University summit announced the formation of an initial entity called, “The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP). The joint statement termed the SPP a “trilateral partnership” that was aimed at producing a North American security plan as well as providing free market movement of people, capital, and trade across the borders between the three NAFTA partners:

"We will establish a common approach to security to protect North America from external threats, prevent and respond to threats within North America, and further streamline the secure and efficient movement of legitimate, low-risk traffic across our borders."

...If President Bush had run openly in 2004 on the proposition that a prime objective of his second term was to form the North American Union and to supplant the dollar with the “Amero,” we doubt very much that President Bush would have carried Ohio, let alone half of the Red State majority he needed to win re-election.

from san francisco chronicle: The Supreme Court made it easier Thursday for police to barge into homes and seize evidence without knocking or waiting, a sign of the court's new conservatism with Samuel Alito on board.

The court, on a 5-4 vote, said judges cannot throw out evidence collected by police who have search warrants but do not properly announce their arrival.

It was a significant rollback of earlier rulings protective of homeowners, even unsympathetic homeowners like Booker Hudson, who had a loaded gun next to him and cocaine rocks in his pocket when Detroit police entered his unlocked home in 1998 without knocking.

The court's five-member conservative majority, anchored by new Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito, said that police blunders should not result in "a get-out-of-jail-free card" for defendants.

"The knock-and-announce rule is dead in the United States," said David Moran, a Wayne State University professor who represented Hudson. "There are going to be a lot more doors knocked down. There are going to be a lot more people terrified and humiliated."

Thursday, June 15, 2006

from alternet: You can't go anywhere these days without spotting those signature white earbuds... the iPeople are everywhere.

Sometimes I even catch myself believing that nothing so lovingly designed, so scrumptiously packaged could POSSibly be a part of something evil. I mean, it looks good, it should BE good.

But then, UK's Daily Mail reported on Sunday that the "Designed in California, Made in China," iPod seems to be assembled by women who "received as little as £27 a month, doing 15-hour shifts." The women live in dorms outside the factory, according to the paper, and outsiders are banned. According to MacWorld: "A security guard told the Mail reporters that the iPod shuffle production lines are staffed by women workers because 'they are more honest than male workers.'"

In response, Apple claims: "[we are] committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible."

We shall see, we shall see. If they do redouble their efforts it'll be interesting to see whether the list price rises or whether they'll take what looks to be a healthy cut in profits...

For the record, I own an iRiver; though I'm not entirely immune to iPod envy.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

from raw story: A confidential House Republican Iraq strategy memo, obtained today by ThinkProgress, shows an effort from House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) to put renewed focus on 9/11, paint Democrats as "cut and run" advocates and frame a future Iraq "victory" as "the best gift of security we can give to future generations of Americans."

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

from san bernadino county sun: Remember the Department of Homeland Security's "no-fly" lists that erratically flagged 3-year-old children and dozens of men named David Nelson as terrorists seeking to board commercial airplanes? Now privacy experts are warning the United States to prepare for the "no-work" list.

As Congress battles over new immigration policy, experts say a little-discussed aspect of the bill, mandatory employee-eligibility verification, is likely to have a colossal impact on the lives of every person in the U.S. labor market, citizen and foreigner alike.

"Everyone who wants to work will feel this provision," said Tim Sparapani, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "People are just beginning to understand the implications of it, and they're big."

Monday, June 12, 2006

from ap/yahoo news:Robert C. Byrd became the longest serving U.S. senator in history Monday. And, with almost 48 years of service, he's not finished yet. Byrd, D-W.Va., surpassed the record of Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., and has spent 17,327 days in the body, where he's the epitome of an old-school senator.

Friday, June 09, 2006

from antiwar: Faced with mounting civilian carnage, both from war crimes committed by demoralized and broken U.S. troops and from the raging civil war unleashed by Bush's ill-fated, illegal invasion of Iraq, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee has decided to waste another $50 billion to continue the lost war for five more months. Our elected "representatives" are so in thrall to the powerful military-industrial complex that no amount of American shame, pariah status, and military defeat can shut off the flow of taxpayers' funds to the merchants of death.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

from the independent: A European investigation has accused Britain and 13 other countries of colluding with the United States in a "global spider's web" of secret CIA prisons and illegal abduction of terrorist suspects.

from guardian: As another report is published making accusations of rendition and secret prisons in Europe, Tony Blair is complaining that it adds nothing new. Calls for the allegations to be backed up by solid evidence are growing stronger. But it's not more evidence that we need, it's more open discussion.

from what really happened: It is now time to think about the unthinkable. Americans who have been raised to love their country and trust in their leaders' commitment to democracy need to be considering--even planning for--emigrating to escape before full-blown tyranny arrives in the United States.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

from reuters uk: Miramax Films is developing a satirical comedy with the former editor in chief of the Onion. "Homeland Insecurity" will track the misadventures of two Arab-Americans who are mistaken for terrorists while on a business trip to Texas...

Saturday, June 03, 2006

from village voice: Richard Linklater's stunning double feature at Cannes this year—A Scanner Darkly and Fast Food Nation—represented not the international supersizing of this always prolific and political American director so much as the ideal opportunity for his audience to engage in another Linklaterian game of comparative pop: positioning same-but-different philosophies opposite one another like facing mirrors, their reflections multiplying to the point of both dizzying revelation and what Scanner vividly defines as the "vague blur"...